Relative Grades and Gender Differences in STEM Enrollment

Larissa Fuchs (), Pia Pinger () and Philipp Seegers ()

CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany

Abstract: Based on novel administrative and survey data from Germany, this study investigates the importance of relative STEM performance in high school for the gender gap in STEM enrollment. We first document that males display a higher relative STEM performance than females, which however mainly emerges from females' stronger achievement in non-STEM subjects. Our findings further reveal that a one-standard-deviation increase in grade-based STEM advantage raises the likelihood of pursuing a STEM degree by approximately 19 percentage points for males, but only by half as much for females. A decomposition analysis shows that 26% of the STEM gender gap could be attributed to differences in grade-based STEM performance if major preferences resembled those of males. However, relative grades are largely unimportant in an environment where preferences mirror those of females. This suggests that STEM performance differences have limited influence on females' decisions to pursue STEM degrees. While STEM advantage significantly impacts observed gender gaps in STEM enrollment, this effect is primarily driven by males.

Keywords: gender gap; STEM enrollment; relative grades; ranks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I24 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34
Date: 2025-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen
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